Conductor Leonard Slatkin and members of the TSO. Photo by Jag Gundu
(program)
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presented a mixed program featuring American composers: Cindy McTee, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, John Corigliano, and George Gershwin on November 22, 2019 at Roy Thomson Hall.
Cindy McTee — Double Play for Orchestra
Samuel Barber — Piano Concerto
Leonard Bernstein — Overture to Candide
John Corigliano — Elegy for Orchestra
George Gershwin — An American in Paris
friday night was about the most fun i’ve had this year at a TSO performance, and not only because of the elton john cover that the foot-stomping pianist jon “jackie” parker threw in as an encore. the program’s theme was music by american composers of the last 135 years or so, and began with the relatively recent instance of cindy mctee’s Double Play for Orchestra (canadian première). the two-part piece——’The Unquestioned Answer’ and ‘Tempus Fugit’——is both a nod to one of the pioneers of american orchestral music (charles ives’s The Unanswered Question) and a specimen of contemporary experiments on the sounds that a modern orchestra can produce, especially in the percussion section. a very excitable and altogether oblique inventiveness in the percussion section was what gave gershwin’s An American in Paris it’s edge when it premièred at Carnegie Hall in the december of 1928. as if circling back on itself, when the program got to An American in Paris, the closing item for the evening, much of the orchestration in that piece is reminiscent of mctee’s. in between the two pieces was the unexpectedly fitting combination of samuel barber’s Piano Concerto, leonard bernstein’s Overture to Candide and john corigliano’s Elegy for Orchestra. the latter as a kind of respite between the cacophonous excursions of the bernstein and gershwin pieces.
the fun, however, had less to do with these pieces than with the people present and performing them: conductor leonard slatkin was briefly joined on stage by his wife and aforementioned composer cindy mctee (“you get to meet her after, and I get to go home with her” actual quote from slatkin). mctee was himself a source of entertainment, a master perpetually at ease in his role on the podium, and even moreso in all the curtsying and formulaic gestures that come with job. His occupation, it appears, is also the family business——his two children are also emerging composers——and he could potentially conduct a perpetually staged program of works by just his family members, as he jokingly proposed during his introductory speech. joining him on stage for the berber Concerto was soloist jon parker, another seasoned master and natural entertainer, a frequent flier through the international circuit of symphonies. his performance of the Concerto was indicative not only of his intimate familiarity of both its conceptual and kinetic requirements, but also that he is still excited by the work, his anticipation of impending climaxes hooked our attention to this otherwise perfectly round work.and in the middle of it all was the variously proportioned but consistently enthralling Toronto Symphony Orchestra, able to seamlessly maneuver through the program’s many scene changes without missing a literal beat.
Jon Parker and Leonard Slatkin with The Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jag Gundu
an eclectically populated percussion section, featuring woodblocks and a rainsticks, introduced the first part of Double Play. the sound is texturally saturated, susurrus and slithering undulations that create the impression that the music is being poured through a colander. the theme introduced on solo violin (courtesy of concertmaster jonathan crow), begins cadentially, cutting through the swell like a beam of light. the violin melody is clapped shut by the rainstick’s long pour, accompanied by brass and met with drum rolls that ramp up to climactic wet thump. the movement returns to more a pastoral setting, as light strings gently shape the contours of the initial violin melody, and the percussion section again responds with a short and thunderous phrase (perhaps that’s the answer that can’t be questioned). this trade between quiet woodwinds and strings and chest thumping brass and percussions, describes the rest of The Unquestioned Answer. with Tempus fugit (which more or less translates to ‘time flies’), the strings are more strained, and the percussions are possessed by a restless and unsettled rhythm, with the woodblocks being the main culprit. the incoherent material, at the beckon a gutteral drum roll, suddenly gathers up into a boisterous jazz rhythm, paced by a shuffle on high-hat and highlighted with calls escaping like steam from high pitched brass. low strings keep the scale grand with a rushing repetitive theme, while the occasional shake of a tambourine keep it light and festive. the movement is characterized by the teasing of a burgeoning rhythm, from different overlapping sections of the orchestra, that never lasts nor takes centrestage. a strong start to the evening, conjuring an irresistible energy that would last until the jazzier final stretch of An American in Paris.
Jon Parker and Leonard Slatkin with The Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Jag Gundu
the program returns to a more cerebral atmosphere with barber’s Piano Concerto, wherein the noticeable partition between soloist and orchestra only serves to emphasize the spotlight that parker filled. unexpectedly, it was the slow movement that was most memorable in his performance. it’s a tender passage that parker caresses with just the right amount of drama to deliver everything one could want of a slow movement: the tranquility of a dream, the active serenity of a stroll.
perhaps there’s no better way to contrast a youth’s idealism——especially the all-will-be-well sentimentality of Candide’s title character——than with raucous circus music, topsy turvy stuff. and that’s exactly what we hear in leonard bernstein’s Overture for Candide. this was contrasted by john corigliano’s Elegy for Orchestra, a tender song originally written for a love scene in wallace frey’s off-broadway production, Helen. it seems corigliano pairs well with gershwin, as pieces by the two composers were also set back-to-back in one of the programs presented at Toronto Summer Music festival this year. this was my first time hearing gershwin’s An American in Paris in its full length, and the TSO left an indelible impression. woodblocks make their second appearance of the night, joined by xylophones and a pair of taxi horns rigged for symphonic purposes. it was a very fun time, the kind that makes you put away the pen and paper to enjoy the music.